Kathryn Kysar is the 2025 winner of the Association of Writers and Writing Program’s George Garrett Award for Outstanding Service to Literature and recipient of a 2024 Creative Individual Minnesota State Arts Board grant in creative nonfiction. Her poetry books include Dark Lake and Pretend the World, and she edited Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers. She has recently published in About Place Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Slag Glass City, and Water~Stone Review. Kysar is the creative writing program founder and English professor at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and teaches poetry writing at the Loft Literary Center.